Marketing

Bettman and the NHL could have avoided this whole lockout ordeal with one word—marketing.

Think about it.

If Bettman focused more on marketing the sport to a broader audience to begin with, teams around the league would be bringing in more fans and more money.

More fans and more money equals happy owners.

If there were happy owners, the focus of these 2012 lockout proceedings wouldn't be centered around them demanding that the players accept a smaller cut of the league's revenues, so franchises operating in the red can stay afloat.

It's a bad cycle right now in the NHL. Once the lockout is over, Bettman and these owners better think of ways to make hockey more mainstream, because the fans are what make this sport go.

The popularity of the NHL is on life support and the league's greed is negatively affecting the small amount of fans that it still has.

"The unions get greedy, the owners get greedy, they can’t come to an agreement and so you sit there and go, ‘well why can’t we come to an agreement?’ The fans are suffering. The owners and the players aren’t suffering, they get the money,” one fan told 1010 WINS’ Glenn Schuck.

Another fan expressed concern that this second stoppage will deter fans again.

“I’m worried about what they did five or six years ago when they had the lockout. I wonder what’s going to happen again, if it’s going to be the same effect where there’s not going to be hockey for a while and fans are not going to come out,” he told Schuck.

The third fan uttered their dismay with the spoiled and greedy owners.

“All of us that aren’t professional athletes look at it and say ‘Are you kidding me?’ You can make $6 million, $5 million a year, the better players. And the owners, they’re making money,” another fan told Schuck.

These fans represent the overall annoyance of hockey enthusiasts everywhere. There is no question that a second lockout in less than 10 years has fans riled up about the league.